Prasius

iTrader: (1)

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Galaxies clash in four-way merger

When this happens to us we're going to have a bit more to worry about than some soggy carpets and sunburn

dpb

Like an unwanted midge in your gloss finish

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

You would probably still pay "galaxy collision" taxes lol!

Leslie

It is difficult to even imagine the size of the Universe when you read about things like this. I suppose theoretically the Universe could become just one giant galaxy in time. I often wonder about other worlds which might also be supporting some kind of intelligent life.

Les

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

Yeah I think of it too, because on this planet there is no intelligent life!

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Lets hope they don't believe in 'god' or have any kind of religion

Leslie

How did I know someone would mention that!

Les

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

Not to mention "money" and "democracy"!

OllyK

Unlikely as the universe is expanding and shows no sign of slowing down, so in general, things are getting further away. You have to consider this merge occured almost 14 billion years ago (only 9 billion years after the start of the universe as we know it), it isn't a current event. If the expansion did slow, stop and reverse and we start heading towards a big collapse then yes it's possible, but I'm not aware of anytbody supporting a big collapse any more.

SJ_Skyline

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

As MP3

boxst

The question of course being what is the Universe expanding INTO. What is beyond the Universe ..

Steve

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

I'll warn "them" of you!

lestippp

No intelligent life here so would be a first really

We haven't had a period in our history when one race or another hasn't been trying to obliterate some other group... pretty intelligent We blow each other up in the name of religion week in week out

Must be other life forms out there though and would be nice to see them

Still our subaru's are moving faster than the universe at least, does that mean we can "time travel"

Nimbus

It's not expanding INTO anything. The fabric of space it itself expanding. To use an oft quoted example, imagine a two dimensional universe like the surface of a ball. If the ball expands, points on the surface get further apart because the surface itself is getting bigger. You may argue that the ball is expanding "into" our universe, but that's only because we are using an analogy in our 3D world.

There are believed to be extra dimensions (from 6 or 7), but these are curled up at the Planck scale and don't directly effect Macroscopic life.

SJ_Skyline

There was an article a while back (in the New York Times IIRC) suggesting that the universe is doughnut shaped. If this is true then I guess with a powerfull enough telescope you could see yourself...

Nimbus

Not necessarily...

If the universe was expanding faster than light the distance the light needs to travel to reach your telescope will increase faster than the time light has to cross it. You'll never see your own image as it's getting further away.

Even if it isn't expanding faster than light, the universe still needs to be old enough for the light to make the round trip.

This does not just apply to a doughnut shape of course. This can be applied to the classical spear shape.

SJ_Skyline

If it was frosted with pink icing then it would just be too cruel to imagine.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

BBC website said its 5 billion light years away... so, presumably, what we're seeing happend 5 billion years ago? Not 14 billion?

Anyhow - I'm under the impression that galaxy collisions arn't over that quickly

Think its on the NASA site that some galaxy is going to smash into "us" (the milky way) in a few billion years anyhow.. so, unless we've sorted intergalatic travel by then - we're pretty much screwed anyhow. Guess it'll be like a really big hailstorm.. but with mahoosive stars.

Anyhow - was quiet in work earlier so figured out how far away this was happening - and came up with...

6,734,537,776,512,000,000,000 kilometres
4,182,647,767,000,000,000,000 Miles

Which.. is..

168,048,353,749,519,650,655 (and a bit) times around the earth.
17,268,045,580,800,000 times to the moon. (yeah, get us! we've been to the moon - yipdee f**king do )

I did try to work out how long it would take to get there if you left Earth travelling at 100mph, and then realised it would take longer than the Universe is thought to be old - which is a bit of a bummer.

ScoobyMaz

iTrader: (1)

Whilst bored during a geology lecture a few years back, my mate and I worked out how long it would take to drive to the Andromeda Galaxy in his Renault 5. We even worked out how much petrol it would take and how much it would cost. I would love to know what I did with the paper we wrote it on.

Leslie

Leaving the religious bit to Sti wanna who started it anyway, purely from the scientific side Olly, what theories are there for what was in existence before as you say the Universe as we know it started up. I find it difficult to get my head round what has been said already on this thread over the sheer size on the Universe and the fact that it is expanding as well at such enormous speeds, let alone what was here before it even began to form.

Les

LEUVEN

Everytime I think about the World, Solar system, Galaxy and Universe etc.
I always seem to ask myself the same sort of questions.

Like what is there beyond the Universe or the furthest thing away and then what is there beyond that?

What are we inside and what is the thing we are inside, inside of?

Where did it ALL start and what was there before the start and even before that?

I don't think we need to have a purpose but then we must have IF we have been put here (in whatever form we started off from, be it a little white dot or whatever) even if we as humans or life full stop were not intentionally meant to be formed.



Then I try to think of something else.

Prasius

iTrader: (1)

How about this - when those Galaxies actually collided, this planet didn't even exsist!

In the time the light got here for us to see it, our entire solar system arranged itself.

If anything, something like this, when you try and think about it in real terms, rather than seeing it as an abstract - which is understandable when trying to think about something so massive - it just underlines how truely insignificant we really are.

We are powerless against the whims of our own little, tiny, planet, let alone the power and fury of of an entire galaxy. What would happen if a galaxy collided with the Milkyway? We'd be wiped out of the universe in one little swipe. The orbit of every body in the solar system would get trashed as stars were thrown close to our sun, we would be flung out of orbit like a tiny speck of dust - thats if Jupiter wasn't pulled out of orbit and smashed into us first of course.

Do I find that depressing though.. nah, not really - its just the Universe throwing down a challenge isn't it? Work me out or cease to exsist in a few million years.

I wonder how many other species have reached a similar point in its evolution but been wiped out by the Universe?

TopBanana

It's going to happen - we are an a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. It probably wouldn't cause us too much grief unless we were very very unlucky - galaxies are very sparse things.

I do agree that we need to get off this planet to guarantee our long term survival though

Maz

iTrader: (34)

I doubt if the human race wil be in existence when that does happen.

Leslie

I am sorry that Olly hs not answered my question which was not meant in any other way than genuine interest. He has obviously taken a pretty deep interest in these things and could give some useful answers.

I have had no training in anything like quantum theories etc. but I do find anything about the Universe very interesting. Without wanting to enter into any kind of religious argument or to score points off anyone which is totally unproductive, I would just like to know from someone who may have studied it, what was reckoned to be around before the Big Bang and how all that matter got distributed over such unimaginable distances. The whole thing is so vast that i just get totally lost for any kind of an idea about it.

Les

carl

Well there is no 'before' the big bang, as time is a product of the universe and without the universe there is no time. As Hawking says, it's like asking what's north of the north pole.

There was once a theory that the universe was cyclical, that the dark matter eventually slowed the expansion then everything collapsed in 'big crunch'. Then it all started again with a 'big bang' but the crunch 'n' bang erased all information about the 'previous' universe.

I haven't studied this stuff in years (about 10 years actually) but then the predominant theory was that the expansion would never slow and the universe would just eventually die out with a whimper, becoming a sea of protons and electrons too far away from each other to interact.

To really understand it you have to throw away any preconceptions you have about space and time, which you have learnt in a low-energy Newtonian worls, and embrace the concepts. It's fascinating stuff, but the maths is really more difficult than I could cope with which is why I specialized in orbital dynamics.

Of course, now I'm an IT project manager...

Leslie

Thanks carl, I suppose to be even able to begin to understand it you would first have to learn a different style of thinking.

Les

Hoppy

Here's another theory for you.

Frankly, we know bugger all about the universe (there are even some unexplored areas of earth ) so we look at the stars and conclude that there must be some almighty power out there controlling things. Things that we can't comprehend.

This almighty power is called God and since Man has the arrogance to meddle with such fantasies, God gets fashioned into something Man can relate to. Except that we all have different ways of interpreting this, so we have many Gods and anybody who dares question other Gods had better be damn careful.

So there we have it. The universe is the souce of all human conflict. It should be banned. Turn off the stars. All telescopes smashed. Quantum physicists crucified. Churches demolished etc etc.

Personally, I'm more concerned about one of our dogs who's none too well today At least I can do something about it that matters to me and my family. Vets tomorrow. No time star gazing.

Richard